I am trying to configure a ViewSonic VG150 LCD 15" monitor under Mandrake 8.0 using Mandrake Control Center. The reason I am trying to configure the monitor is that it boots up into a very funny font that looks like the OCR writing on a check. Parts of each character are highlighted and parts are skinny which I was told was because Mandrake is trying to force a 1024x768 monitor into a 800x600 space using some kind of frame. Also part of the text extends past the top and bottom of the screen. The funny font is both in terminal mode and X and is hard to look at. I can fix this by activating the Auto Synch feature on the monitor but it's a pita to keep doing that. To try to change the monitor I go through the following steps: I click Mandrake Control Center, enter my root password and select Hardware | Display. After setting the resolution and color depth, I somehow get to a screen that gives me several options including Change Monitor. I select Expert Mode and that allows me to use either XFree86 3 or 4. I choose 4. When I click that a list of monitor types and brands comes up. ViewSonic is the last one on the list and I can select VG150 which is my present LCD monitor. I then OK out, expecting my settings to be saved in /etc/XFree86-4. However, they are not saved or changed although both XFree86 (version 3) and XFree86-4 are updated for date and time. Under the monitor section, my monitor is listed as "monitor1" just as before. I check the files with less. It's slow going as I have been experiencing frequent freezes under X. They are all the same, I click on something and the mouse pointer freezes. Neither ctl-alt-backspace or ctl-alt-del do anything even though I tested both and they normally work. The freezes have been while working in Mandrake Control Center and one time when I first clicked on the RPM Software Manager although it worked the second time. I'm about ready to reinstall Mandrake but this shouldn't be happening. The computer I'm using has been super reliable under Mandrake 7.2 and Windows. The only thing I have changed is a new IBM 40 gig hard disk with about a 24 gig /home partition. Other partitions are /boot, /, /usr, /usr/local, /var, /opt and swap. FWIW I _believe_ the monitor problems are unrelated to the X freezes. It's just that the X freezes complicate the configuration problem. Any help you can give me on this would be greatly appreciated. I'll hold off on the re-install hoping for some feedback. Thanks, Larry Alkoff N2LA Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
